The 2024 election has come to a close. November 5, 2024, ended the race between Kamala Harris, the democratic nomination, and Donald J. Trump, the republican nomination, as Donald Trump cinched the White House, making him the 47th President of the United States. Many were shocked by the turn of events as what was predicted to be a close race actually turned into more of a sweep by President-Elect Trump. As a viewer myself, it was quite thrilling to watch the days and weeks leading up to election day, as well as to see the results come in real time.
For weeks, political scientists had been analyzing poll data claiming that this would be a tight race. One claimed that “[p]olls might show Harris leads Trump by around 2%, but it’s also true that Trump has never been closer in the national polls to a Democratic rival.” ABC News’s Project 538 claimed that “[their] model gave Harris a 50 out of 100 chance of winning the majority of Electoral College votes [and that their] model gives Trump a 49 out of 100 chance.” The pollster data below continued to show how it could have gone either way. And yet the election did not demonstrate this. 
Most elections come down to the purple states, also known as the swing states. Over the last few years, these states these states have been Georgia, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, North Carolina, Arizona, and Nevada. Every year, presents a new possibility to change which party they give their electoral votes to. Throughout the night of November 5th, many of these states were a battleground, switching between Trump leading and Harris leading. Many were too close to call until over 90% percent of the votes were counted. Each state was a tight race between the candidates with the winner only winning by a percent or two.
In a shocking turn of events, Trump swept pretty much all the swing states, drastically turning the election in his favor. He won Pennsylvania 50.5% to Harris’s 48.5%, he won Georgia 50.8% to 48.5% and he took both Wisconsin and Michigan, which many thought would stay blue, with 49.7% for both. (AP News) Although the map will show a mostly red country, it was still a considerably tight race throughout.
With 292 electoral votes (as of Nov 6 at 3:30 pm), Donald J. Trump will retake the white house in January 2025 as the 47th President. Upon his return to the White House, Trump is looking to cut down on the illegal immigrants and immigration in general into the United States, end the inflation epidemic along with cutting taxes, and work to end the war in Ukraine (BBC). There’s definitely some discourse over Trump’s extreme conservative policies, but no matter what party is in power, we are one nation, standing together.
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